The Sounds of Silence
by Cerulean1
Summary: Hello darkness, my old friend/I've come to talk with you again/Because a vision softly creeping/Left its seeds while I was sleeping/And the vision that was planted in my brain/ Still remains - Simon and Garfunkel. Jack/Kasumi
1. Jack

**Again: Happy Birthday :)**

Jack sits upright, her heart pounding, a sheen of sweat coating her body. The sheets are tangled around her bare calves, and the cool air prickles her skin as the dream fades and she comes slowly back to herself. She is used to nightmares. She doesn't remember having many as a child – being awake was nightmare enough – but they have plagued her since she left Teltin. The first time. She doesn't give half a mind to them anymore, just accepts that she will wake, and that it might take some time for her to fall back asleep.

As her breathing slows, and her heartbeat returns to normal the room falls into silence. It is the silence of an empty house, a silence of creaking trees and the hum of central air. It is the silence of the deepest night. The sort of silence that most people never hear. It is a silence to be slept through.

She settles back onto the pillows, letting a hand trace along the raised, jagged scars that cross her sides and stomach. She pictures the tattoos she has had done around them. They hide the scars, and accent them. She knows them as intimately as she knows her scars. Her hand moves lazily, sleepily, across her stomach, down her side, the outside of her thigh, up the inside, back up across her stomach. She traces the tattoos, the smooth skin a harsh contrast to the scars she has just left. It soothes her, calms her mind. Her fingers return to the scars, the skin here has less feeling, but more memory. As her fingers dance she thinks about how she got each scar. The tests and the games. The fights. The drugs.

She is mostly asleep when the silence changes. She knows the change to the silence. Knows the way the air shifts, the way it seems to thin and thicken. She knows this silence. Remembers it. Remembers the way she had grown accustomed to it, the way she had sometimes looked forward to it. The way she had, more than once, misinterpreted it. The silence brings a smile to her lips. She thinks of meeting the silence, of reaching for it, or perhaps breaking it, but doesn't want to give up the game. It is a game she has played with the silence since that first time the air shifted around her.

She lets her hands continue to move, careful now not to so much as shift the sheets, to not let her breathing break the tightness in the air.

The rules have changed, as she has changed, but some things always stay the same.

* * *

_The engines rumbled against Jack's back. The tiny cot she lay on reverberated with the vibrations. It lent a soundtrack to the information before her. She grinned, thinking of the way that Cerberus bitch had growled when Shepard had given her the order to hand over the files. Cerberus would pay. Maybe not right now; Shepard had hooked her on this damn mission, and as much as she hated admitting she liked anyone, she had a grudging respect for the annoying do-good-er girl scout. The words in front of her blurred; she'd been reading for hours and it was starting to wear on her. She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander, letting daydreams of what she would do to Cerberus play out in her mind. There were lots of explosions, and maybe she'd set that bitch Lawson up to fight the Illusive Man. That would be a match to remember._

_Something shifted in the room._

_She hadn't survived as long as she had by being complacent. She pushed the data pads away, and snapped up onto her feet. The dim light was more than enough for her to see by, her eyes long ago adjusting to the dark, hidden places she preferred on the ship. She crouched low, her biotics buzzing, but she didn't allow herself to reach for them. The blue glow would give her away. That had been lesson six: Stay hidden, stay safe._

_But there was no one there. She slowed her breathing, listening. There was a silence, but it wasn't a silence she knew. She crept slowly toward the stairs, eyes darting quickly into every hidden crevice. It felt like someone was watching her, but she couldn't see anyone. She peered up through the stairs, but there was no one there either._

_She climbed up into engineering. Tali was working at her normal console and Gabby was talking with her about some coupling or whatever but the pig Donnelly was nowhere to be seen. She growled. Of course, that jackass had been spying on her._

_She stomped back down the stairs, ignoring Tali's questioning call._

"_Donnelly, you fucker! Get your sorry ass out here, and face me like the man you claim to be!" she yelled, to no response. She made it back down to her cot, but the silence had changed again. It was the silence she knew. The silence of the vibrations of the engine. _

_Fucker had gotten away._

* * *

She listens intently, waiting for a break in the stillness of the air. She has learned how it breaks. If there is one thing she knows about this silence, it is that it doesn't like to stay still. It moves, it flows; it cascades around her. Fills her. If she plays along, eventually it will give, and she can grab it. Hold it against the cold night, and demand that it shatter.

There had been a time when she had found a perverse joy in the breaking. Of finding the cause, and forcing it to sound. She'd needed to break it, once. Needed to discover its cause and fight back against it. She hadn't known what to do when she had. Had done what she always did. There had been joy in that too. It was different though. Breaking the silence is cathartic.

She lets a hand trail down between her breasts, moving slowly, quietly. Listening intently. Her hand stops, playing absently with her navel when she thinks she hears the first hitch in the thick air. The silence returns, though, and her hand continues its slow decent. The blankets were still tangled around her feet, but she can't kick them away without giving up that she knows the silence watches.

She has yet to lose, but once. She has no plans to make it twice.

Instead, she brings her knees up, legs crossed at the ankle, the blankets coming with them. She lets her knees drop, exposing herself to the silence. Her hand slips between her thighs, and she runs a fingertip along the crease of her thigh. She keeps the smirk from her face, keeps her breathing calm. She's been playing this game for a long time; she knows the rules, and she is more than willing to play by them.

There is little arousal, though. The dream has left her shaken, and even the silence isn't enough to wipe it completely from her mind so quickly. So she toys, and she plays, and she teases. The silence refuses to shift.

She lets her eyes drift shut again, letting her mind slip back. Letting it fall into the first memories she has that aren't of pain. There is pain after, but for the first time in her life there are moments that don't hurt. Moments where the little girl she had never had a chance to be can slip out. The Normandy had changed her. She can't put a finger exactly on when, or where, or how it had happened. It had been slow and sneaky, like the silence. She lets her fingers slide between her folds, biting back the soft moan that threatens as she thinks about that moment.

The moment when she discovered the silence.

* * *

_She stomped down the stairs, slamming a hand into the bulkhead with a scream. She kept her biotics in check, having no desire to find herself spaced, and was left with nothing but a stinging in her knuckles. It just pissed her off even more. When the place had gone up, when the ground had shook and the shuttle had rocked she had expected to feel better. She had expected that it would finally be over. Instead, she'd simply felt hollow. What was there to work towards now? _

_The destruction of Cerberus?_

_Later, but for the moment the fuckers were paying her._

_The humiliation of Lawson?_

_Maybe, but Shepard had just broken that up._

_There was nothing. She was nothing. Just the empty shell of a broken child._

_Shepard had forced her to go talk to Chambers. Talking had led to other things, which if rumors were true, was a fairly common practice with the yeoman. But it hadn't helped. She'd left satisfied, certainly, but she hadn't discovered any deep reason for why she felt the way she did. She'd kept moving for so long just to prove she could. She'd gone back, and survived. But it hadn't left her feeling any more like a person._

_She kicked a stack of crates, only mildly disappointed when they didn't tumble over. She wanted to break something._

_She moved into the little area where she slept, and stopped dead. The silence was back._

_It came and went, though in recent weeks it had become more frequent. She hated and looked forward to it, in equal measure. The feel of eyes on her skin, the feeling that someone was there. The feeling that she wasn't alone._

"_Donnelly, I swear, if this is you, I will gut you like the spineless fish you are!" she bellowed. Though she knew it wasn't Donnelly. The last few times she'd felt the silence, both Gabby and Ken had been in the maintenance shafts – she had heard them talking beside her head minutes earlier. Until she knew the source though, blaming the annoying Scotsman. Irishman. Whatever the hell he was. Was easiest._

_There was no answer, but she hadn't expected one. There was never an answer to her shouts._

_Muttering curses under her breath, she stalked over to her cot. Only to be pulled up short a second time._

_She hated the feeling of shock and wonder that washed over her, hated when people got the jump on her. It was happening more often than she'd like to admit, of late, and the desire to break shit returned._

_And she'd start with the doll that was propped lovingly on her pillow._

* * *

Her fingers dance lazily, but purposefully, the predatory grin she's been fighting finally breaking free when she feels the shift in the air. It doesn't always work - the silence is picky - but when it finally does, the silence breaks fast.

The air moves around her, though there is no sound to accompany it. She grins, her hand sliding lower, her lips slick as she sinks her middle finger inside herself. She waits, breathless, for the silence to move.

It doesn't.

* * *

_She picked up the doll, torn between throwing it away and holding it close. She remembered it, distantly. A little girl, no more than four, and the men in coats with their drugs and their tests and their mind games. And a woman. A beautiful woman with long red hair, and bright blue eyes, and a sweet smile. And at four, Subject Zero was not yet broken, and she had smiled back and had been given the doll in return. It had been taken from her, she remembered, just before she'd escaped. She'd kept it in the drawer of the desk in her room. She'd been much too old at that point to sleep with it. Too bitter to remember the red-haired woman with anything but contempt. But she'd kept the doll. One, small, tangible object to prove that she was still a child, somewhere. But she'd come back, and it was gone._

_And now it was here. The eye that she'd popped loose in a fit had been replaced. The clothes had been mended. The doll was filthy from long years of exposure, but it was whole._

_More whole than its owner._

"_What th-" she started, pulling the doll close to her. The child she had been brought close to the surface by the day's events. And her doll. And then the silence shifted. She clutched the doll in her fist, spinning on a heel._

_Sitting on top of the stack of crates she had kicked on entering sat Kasumi. The little thief had been shaken by Pragia, even Jack had been able to that. She was holding a small white contraption, her eyes hidden by a holographic visor. And she was crying. Not the racking sobs Jack always figured people, other than her, had when they cried. Kasumi's face was impassive, but two lines of tears streaked down her face, which was still hidden by her cowl._

* * *

Though the room still seems empty except for her, something grabs her wrist. Stills her hand.

"You had a nightmare," the silence says, softly.

* * *

_Jack glared at the intruder. Cataloged her presence, the silence, connected the dots that had __for so long eluded her. Wondered, in a distant way, why the little thief had been watching her. Wondered what purpose it could serve. Wondered why she'd brought the doll._

"_Shepard let me keep it," Kasumi said, lifting the box slightly then setting it beside her, the visor flickering once before disappearing, "I could get lost in the memories, if I wasn't careful."_

"_You have a point?" Jack asked tossing the doll onto the bed in what she hoped looked like a careless manner, even as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure it hadn't fallen._

"_Letting go isn't easy. It's so much easier to fall into the past, the good and the bad.__ It was a good thing you did, back there. What they did... I don't know how you...you were...they...you...you were just children!"_

"_Yeah, well, it's not like it's any of your fucking business."_

"_You'd do well to be polite, honey," Kasumi said, smirking past her tears, her whole attitude shifting in a moment. A defense mechanism perhaps, or just a quirk of the small woman. "I didn't have to give you the doll. The biotic amplifier in its body is probably worth more than a small colony. I bet Shepard would love to have it. I hear we're on our way to see that information broker girlfriend of hers. That'd make a wonderful present for any asari."_

_Jack clenched her fists, barely resisting the urge to grab the doll and hold her close. At least she knew why they'd let her keep it, when they hadn't let her keep anything else. An amplifier. They'd probably taken the doll to put it in something a teenager was more likely to keep on her person. Or maybe they were just planning to put it in her own stomach. Subconsciously, Jack reached down, traced over the scars on her side. What was one more scar, when they had already given her so many?_

* * *

"That's hardly unusual," Jack replies, attempting to free her hand. The silence chuckles, but doesn't let Jack move.

* * *

"_Why the hell are you down here anyway?" Jack snapped, tossing herself onto the cot, careful not to land on the doll. She glared at the thief, crossing her arms over her chest._

"_I wanted to see how you liked my present. And Jacob was ignoring me. Oh, that man is lovely, isn't he?"_

_Jack curled her lip. It wasn't that she didn't find Jacob attractive; there was just something about him that didn't sit quite right. And that didn't even take into account his being Cerberus. Screwing Jacob would be like screwing Lawson, only with less satisfaction for having defiled Cerberus' golden girl. She hadn't sunk quite that low. Let Kasumi have her games with him. "If you say so. Now get out."_

_Kasumi slid easily to the floor, her cowl falling as she landed. Her hair flared out as it was freed; long and black, it seemed to shine even in the dim light. It fell in waves over her shoulders, and, __no longer tucked up in the hood, framed her face. Jack smiled predatorily. Strange what something so simple as a falling hood could cause. Maybe Kasumi would prove a better distraction than Chambers._

* * *

"You're tense. Relax."

"I just had a fucking nightmare, as you so graciously pointed out. And you stopped my attempt to relax," she adds, nodding down at her hand, which is still held against her sex, but unable to move.

"I thought that little show was for my benefit?"

* * *

_Jack moved with the lithe grace of a jungle cat, stretching out from the cot, and capturing Kasumi against the crates in a single, easy movement. She stretched, pressing herself against the thief, one hand clamping Kasumi's wrists, the other pressed against the top of the stack of crates._

_She debated holding her there with her biotics. It would be so simple to lash her down; to the floor, the cot, up against the wall. Shepard would never forgive her though._

_She wasn't sure she'd forgive herself._

* * *

"You're full of yourself," Jack mutters, attempting to lift her hips up into her hand. She fails, and sags back against the mattress.

"You do set yourself up for the most horrible puns," comes the answer, accompanied by a warm chuckle. A moment later Jack's hand is replaced by another. This is smaller, but just as familiar. And it knows her just as well. First one, and then a second, finger enter her. They move slowly, teasingly, and are joined by a soft laugh with every stroke.

* * *

_It was better to let her think she could escape. Jack was much less likely to notice her struggling if she wasn't holding her herself. She'd let her go, if she asked. But she'd see how far she could push it before she did._

* * *

"Fuck, Kasumi," Jack growls, writhing on the bed. The thief materializes beside her, the tattoo bifurcating her lip pulled wide in a Cheshire cat grin.

"Don't worry, we'll get to that," she says, stretching herself out over the former convict.

* * *

_She ran her hand along the front of the crates, then up Kasumi's side. The smaller woman was shaking, and for a fleeting moment Jack considered stopping. The first word out of her mouth. That's when she'd stop._

_She slid her hand up, fingers searching, finding, cupping a breast through the layers of fabric Kasumi wore. She felt the woman press back against her, and grinned._

* * *

"Well hurry...hurry the fuck up. Stop...stop fucking teasing me."

"All in good time."

"Fuck."

"Such a poet."

* * *

_She leaned forward, intent on the curve of her neck. It was longer than she'd expected, the way the cowl lay over her shoulders. The skin was light, tender, and Jack knew it would bruise easily. _

_Before she got the chance to find out how easily, though, she found herself pinned to the floor. She didn't even remember the thief moving._

"_What the hell?" she sputtered._

"_I could ask you the same. Didn't anyone ever teach you the proper thing to do is take a girl to dinner first?"_

"_Screw you," Jack growled, trying to buck Kasumi off her. The woman didn't budge._

"_Not today," she said, leaning low over Jack's back and pressing her weight down slightly. _

"_This is kind of hot, actually," Jack leered. And it was. Kasumi was nearly a head shorter than she was, and certainly didn't look strong enough to overpower her even if she had been distracted. There were few grown men that could overpower Jack, even discounting her biotics. She was not a large woman, but she hid a strength people only underestimated once. Kasumi hid more, it seemed. She was more than a little aroused at how easily the thief had bested her. Of course, she need only bring out her biotics, and the tables would be turned again, but she'd let Kasumi have this victory._

* * *

"Just get me off, already!" Jack groans, reaching up and pushing Kasumi's cowl down. She runs her fingers through her hair, and then pulls the thief close, kissing her forcefully.

Kasumi answers with a happy purr. Her hand speeds up, her thumb falling into a well-known rhythm. Jack bites back a scream, arching her back. If she hadn't known her so well, hadn't been on the receiving end of the almost violent ministrations of her lover's hand more than once before, she wouldn't have believed the tiny woman capable of such things.

* * *

"_You have the manners of a dog, Subject Zero," Kasumi said, leaning lower and planting an open-mouthed kiss on her jaw. "You should do something about that."_

_Before Jack could speak, the weight was gone from her back, and the sound of the door opening and then sliding closed could be heard above her head._

* * *

Conscious thought becomes difficult. There is only Kasumi. And the silence.

* * *

_The round was lost; Jack promised she wouldn't lose again._

* * *

Jack clings desperately at Kasumi's shoulders, no longer able to control her body. She shudders, her orgasm ripping through her. Her body arches, her breathing stops, returns in a gasp. A moan. A scream. Kasumi kisses her again, catching the scream, sharing it. Her hand slows, draws her out, wears her thin, until Jack isn't sure she can take anymore. She reaches down, stills Kasumi's hand, and brings the woman to lie beside her.

* * *

_Kasumi didn't come back, but the silence did. Jack played at not knowing who was there when the air around her changed. She could play dumb when she had to._

_It wasn't until after the cluster-fuck that had been the Collector ship that she came back, and revealed herself. Jack woke, to find the thief tucked in the cot beside her. She was fast asleep, her hair cascading across Jack's chest as she used the taller woman's shoulder for a pillow. She didn't consider it a loss that she didn't yell and send the woman away. Nor that they did not have sex that night. Or the following ones._

_The sex came almost incidentally. A natural progression, something neither were even thinking __about, or at least, Jack wasn't thinking about. It was sporadic, and passionate, and strange. And when they all went their separate ways, and she'd ended up on Grissom, doing her best to prevent what had happened to her from happening again, she'd found herself missing the tiny Japanese kleptomaniac. Her tiny Japanese kleptomaniac._

* * *

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack whispers, nuzzling Kasumi's ear. The words come out in a breath, rushed and broken. The thief hums happily and shrugs out of her clothes.

"I missed you. Still can't get out of the system. You can only steal the same painting so many times from different people before it gets boring."

"You should try blowing shit up. Works for me."

"As subtle as a Reaper," Kasumi laughs, pressing her lips gently to Jack's.

* * *

_She came to visit on Grissom. Showing up in the middle of the night, gone before first bell in the morning. Jack sometimes wondered if they were dreams, or would have, if not for the presents hidden in the smallest places of her room. A romance novel, probably older than that bitch Justicar, tucked behind her sock drawer, a priceless turian etched crystal, hidden under her mattress, a picture of a baby girl, held by a woman with Jack's eyes. From L & S was scribbled in a corner of that one, Jack figured that was probably Shepard and her blue asari toy. It had been displayed, proudly, on the dresser. Jack had tucked it away between the pages of the novel. The doll sat beside the book, clutching a glass rose. A memento, a memory. A warning._

_And then Cerberus had arrived, followed closely by Shepard. They had gone and kicked the Reapers back into the black hole they'd come from. The explosions hadn't been nearly as satisfying as Jack had hoped. Being on the ground had serious disadvantages._

_She'd met Kasumi afterward, briefly. She hadn't told her where she was staying. She knew it didn't matter. She'd find her anyway._

* * *

"But more fun," Jack answers, rolling Kasumi onto her back.

"We'll have to see about that."

They fall into silence. The silence of lovers, which isn't a quiet silence, but a comforting one. The silence of separation, which is a lonely silence. The silence of reunion, which is sorrowful and bittersweet and all encompassing. They fall into the silence of each other. And if Kasumi is gone in the morning, then that isn't unusual. And if she isn't, that isn't unusual either. And if Jack finds herself wondering what it is like to be normal, to have the house and the kids and the white picket fence, that isn't quite natural, but it has been happening more often lately, not that she will ever admit to it.

In the silence, though, whether they are together or not, they are content.


	2. Kasumi

She watches in silence from out in the hallway. The thermal readings on her visor show the warm bundle on the bed thrashing slightly before sitting up suddenly. The figure's body temperature spikes, then drops. She smiles, and creeps forward. It's not difficult to slip inside, to pad invisible and silent across the rugs. The figure on the bed lays back, and she watches as it traces a finger along its stomach, its legs.

She knows where those fingers touch. Knows the scars as well as their keeper. Knows the thoughts that run through the mind of their owner. Knows how to stop those thoughts from taking over.

Kasumi knows Jack much too well, if she is being honest with herself. She hadn't planned on falling for the convict. Hadn't planned on finding herself drawn to the lithe woman. Hadn't planned on any of it, really.

She refuses to acknowledge the feelings she has; knows that Jack refuses the same. It's easier that way. What would Keiji think if he knew the way her body reacted to the former criminal? What would he think if he knew that there are times when she is with Jack that she doesn't think of him? That there are times when she honestly thinks that she could live without his gray box - could live without him - as long as she is with Jack.

She certainly hadn't expected it. She doesn't accept it now. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, she convinces herself with every step toward the bedroom that Jack means nothing to her. That she is simply a means to an end. She doesn't like women, not like that. She most certainly is not in love with one. There is no possible way that she is in love with one like Jack.

She grins as Jack pauses briefly.

She knows that Jack thinks that she is unaware that the biotics teacher knows exactly when she enters a room, cloaked or not. She lets her continue to think that. It's easier that way. If she let on, Jack wouldn't try so hard to get her to reveal herself. She enjoys watching her. More than she will admit, even to herself.

She doesn't love Jack.

She is using her.

Sometimes she believes it.

* * *

_The first time she went to visit Jack in her little hole in the bowels of the ship it was simply because that is what she does. There was a thrill to following people who don't know she is there. To watching them. She knew eventually she'd have to give up the game, but for the moment it allowed her a modicum of entertainment. As she told Shepard just that morning: there isn't much need for thievery aboard a ship._

_ She crept down the stairs, intrigued by the woman laying on the bed. She had only been on a single mission with her, and knew almost nothing about her. The scantily dressed, tattooed woman on the bed was a mystery. The only thing Kasumi liked better than a difficult heist was a mystery. Or a romance._

_ She moved closer. Most people she could get right up to and they wouldn't know. She could breathe down their necks and the most they would do is shiver and make comments about people walking on their graves. She made her way toward the table that dominated the small area, but she had barely rounded the corner when the daydreaming woman was suddenly on her feet. _

_ Kasumi stopped dead, her back pressed against the wall. That was unexpected, to say the least. She watched Jack scan the room, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It excited her, that someone knew she was there. She grinned, and followed Jack as she made her way up the stairs. Jack went into the engine room, her hands clenched in fists._

_ Kasumi chuckled, and went to see how close she could get to their newest recruit. _

_ She wondered if the assassin was as attuned as Jack._

* * *

Kasumi drops the thermal vision, and lets her eyes adjust. There is just enough moonlight from the window to make out the tattooed form on the bed. Just enough light to see Jack fighting a smile. More than enough light to watch as her hands make their slow decent down her body. She's no longer tracing scars, no longer sinking into bad memories. Her intentions are very different, and very clear. Kasumi just barely catches the gasp that threatens to escape as Jack's fingers play along her stomach, idly toying with her bellybutton. Kasumi remembers that first time they were together, the first time she'd ever...

She shakes her head, trying to focus on the present. The present involves a warm heat between her legs, and an inability to drag her eyes away from Jack's hand as her fingers dance over her sex. She's working herself up, and she's working Kasumi right along with her.

Kasumi runs her hand over her stomach, wishing she'd worn her armor instead of this lighter material. She'd had no intention of getting into combat when she left to watch Jack sleep, but now she wishes she couldn't feel her own fingers through the fabric. It isn't helping to keep her mind focused.

She will resist, she tells herself.

She knows it is a losing battle, but she doesn't care.

She resisted falling into Jack's bed once, she can do it again.

* * *

_ Pragia was hell. For over an hour after returning to the ship, Kasumi could do nothing but stand at her window, staring out at the enumerable stars that passed by. She'd considered walking out, asking Shepard to drop her off at the first inhabited planet they came to. She couldn't wrap her conscience around the fact that her current employer could do what they had. To children! The tables in the medical room turned her stomach. The reports they'd seen made her see red._

_ She'd picked up the doll to sell it. The tiny chip in its body was undamaged and worth more than everything she'd stolen in the past four years combined. She didn't want for money, but when her scans had picked it up, she'd been unable to resist._

_ It hadn't taken her long to come to terms with the fact that one person needed it more than she needed the money._

_ Jack hadn't been in her room when she'd gone down there. She rearranged some crates and settled herself atop them, the doll placed pride of place on Jack's cot. She'd brought the gray box. She hadn't consciously decided to reveal herself to Jack, after so many weeks of watching her from the shadows, but the fact that she'd brought the casing told her she'd planned it even if she didn't know it._

_ Planned it the same way she'd sometimes just show up in the crawlspace under engineering. The same way she'd suddenly feel hungry when she heard Jack leave the elevator ._

_ There was something about this woman, something she couldn't place, that made her do things without thinking. It would get her killed, she was sure. Or outed to the press. Neither would be good for her career._

_ When Jack finally showed up, her whole body shaking with a raging anger, Kasumi felt herself smile. She watched Keiji's memories with half an eye, and watched Jack the same, unsure which caused the tears to seep from the corner of her eyes. Watched her stalk across the room. Ignored the way the sight of her body tensing as she punched the bulkhead caused her to shift uncomfortably on the crates. Just barely pulled her legs out of the way to prevent them from feeling the hard points of Jack's boots._

* * *

Jack slips a finger inside herself, a small moan escaping her lips and Kasumi can't stop herself. She surges forward, eyes never leaving Jack's hand. Watching the way it sinks inside her, and pulls out. She's not quite teasing herself.

She wants it to be her hand between Jack's legs. She wants to be drawing the soft, delicate moans – sounds no one would ever believe possible from the foul-mouthed biotic – from Jack's lips. She wants to feel her fluttering around her fingers, feel her tense around her hand.

She shakes her head, standing over the woman now. No, she doesn't want these things. It is simply a reaction to missing Keiji. To discovering that Jacob is some other woman's baby daddy. It is not Jack she wants.

Deny it though she tries, the truth is she can barely contain herself from slipping between Jack's thighs and tasting her. Can hardly stop herself from whispering endearments in the other woman's ear. She can deny it all she likes to herself, but she wants this. Wants Jack.

And only Jack.

She can't stop herself anymore, and stills Jack's hand. She pulls it gently away, but leaves it between her legs. Their fingers entwine slightly. A word passes through her mind. She ignores it. Lover's they might be, in the crudest sense of the word, but nothing more. She can taste the lie, even in her thoughts.

"You had a nightmare," she whispers, trying to keep the emotion from her voice, but knowing she fails.

"That's hardly unusual," Jack snaps back, tugging gently at her hand, but hardly putting up much resistance to being held.

* * *

_Jack tried valiantly to hide how much that little piece of plastic meant to her, but Kasumi had made her life around seeing things others didn't. She took Jack's snide comments in stride, not sure why they stung so much. They shouldn't._

_ When her hair fell around her shoulders, she expected the attack. She had seen the look in Jack's eyes seconds before she was pressed up against the crates. Jack was fast. She was beautiful. _

_ She was taking advantage._

_ Warm fingers made their presence known even though the thick fabric of her armor. Kasumi fought the desire to press into that hand, to let Jack take what she wanted. What she refused to admit they both wanted._

_ Her mind flittered back to Keiji. To the feel of his large, strong hands. To the way he seemed to always know how to play her. No matter how much her body wanted this, no matter how much she knew all of her wanted it, she wasn't ready. _

_ Jack is on the floor in a heartbeat. She had trained with masters, and for all Jack's greater strength and biotic prowess, Kasumi knew how to take her down._

_ She expected more resistance than she got._

_ She teased Jack, playing with her words, but when the biotic pressed back up against her, trying to push her off, it took everything not to let the moan escape. _

_ It wasn't right._

_ It wasn't fair._

_ She left before she could change her mind._

* * *

Jack's body hums with tension. Kasumi can feel it where her thigh is pressed against Jack's side.

"You're tense. Relax," she says, eyes playing along the other woman's naked body. She figures if she keeps talking, it might prevent her from what she already knows is inevitable. It has been inevitable every time since the first.

* * *

_She continued to go down and see Jack. She tried to stop herself. There were more important things to worry about than the mental health of a clearly insane woman. She felt better, though, when she knew Jack was okay. When she knew Jack wasn't hurting._

_ She knew Jack knew, but neither let on to the game._

* * *

"I just had a fucking nightmare, as you so graciously pointed out. And you stopped my attempt to relax." Jack shifts gently, her chin pointing down at their joined hands, which cup her, but offer neither any relief. Kasumi bites her lip, wanting to lean over and kiss those full lips that pout so dramatically when her hand is denied the right to move again.

"I thought that little show was for my benefit?" she says, hoping to deflect her own thoughts.

* * *

_ It was the Collector ship that finally drew her to reveal herself a second time to Jack. Jack had gone with Shepard, and Kasumi had waited on the ship, her mind running through all of the worse-case scenarios. Most of them involved Jack not coming back._

_ She ignored those thoughts, unwilling to put a name to them. To accept that Jack had already weaseled herself under her skin. _

_ That night, after she was sure Jack as asleep, after hours of tossing and turning in her own bed, she'd snuck down to see her. To convince herself that everything was fine. Jack hadn't woken. It was the first time she hadn't immediately known Kasumi was there._

_ She stripped down to her underwear and crawled in beside the sleeping woman. She hadn't stirred. She'd been worn out; that had been obvious during the debrief earlier that day. Kasumi tucked her head against Jack's shoulder, letting her hair fall across the woman's chest. _

_ She was asleep in seconds._

* * *

Jack pushes up, but Kasumi shifts just enough to keep her from feeling the friction of their hands. "You're full of yourself," Jack mutters under her breath.

Kasumi can't help but laugh, her mind going to what she'd much rather be full of. She debates saying as much, knowing Jack would find it amusing, but resists. "You do set yourself up for the most horrible puns," she says instead. To bring home her point, she releases Jack's hand, pushing it out of the way and replacing it with her own. She has to bite her lip as her fingers glide up inside Jack, her inner walls clenching gently at the intrusion.

She forces herself to go slowly, to tease. She loves the way Jack degrades to little more than curse words when she does.

"Fuck, Kasumi," Jack growls, not disappointing. Her cover blown, she lets the cloak drop, shooting her biggest grin down at the woman twisting up into her hand.

"Don't worry, we'll get to that," she purrs.

* * *

_ She'd slipped out of Jack's cot before first shift the next morning. But returned the next night. And the night after. She wasn't sure when Jack was finally awake to greet her. Wasn't sure how she lost her resistance and pushed the crazy woman onto the cot, stripped her out of her clothes, and learned how making love to a woman is so terribly different, and so very much the same, as making love to a man._

* * *

"Well hurry...hurry the fuck up. Stop...stop fucking teasing me."

"All in good time."

"Fuck."

"Such a poet."

"Just get me off already!"

* * *

_ She almost hit Shepard when the woman told Jack to be their barrier against the swarms. Only went back with the colonists and the ship's crew when Shepard directed her because of the soft smile and gentle nod Jack sent her way._

* * *

Kasumi has never ignored a direct order from her lover. At least not since she first thought, and dismissed, the word for what they are. She knows what Jack wants, knows what she likes, and gives it to her. Her own breathing catches as Jack tries to meet her in the middle. It occurs to her suddenly that she is still fully dressed, but Jack's moans keep her from stopping to strip.

* * *

_ She never said a word to Jack when Shepard dropped them all off at Omega, with one last order to get as far away as possible. She wanted to, but couldn't make herself admit that what they had had was anything more that just needing to feel alive when they were sure everyone was going to die. Enough people had died on that mission._

_ It was luck that led her to Grissom. She remembered Jack's reaction to hearing about the Ascension program, and heard through the grape vine about a new teacher that had the students wanting to learn. It hadn't taken a genius to put two and two together._

_ The Alliance wasn't good at security. At least not enough to stop her. She stowed away on a cargo vessel dropping off food stuffs, and hid in the laundry until the school had shut down for the night._

_ "I didn't think I'd run into you again," Jack said, already working at the clasps on her clothes._

_ "I think it's more fair to say I ran into you," Kasumi answered, enjoying the feel of Jack's slightly longer than stubble ponytail that was just beginning to grow._

_ Jack's hand slipped between the layers of her clothes and her fingers played roughly with Kasumi's nipple. The thief groaned, pushing Jack back toward the bed._

* * *

Jack writhes under her, her breathing stopping and starting as she nears her peak. It had scared her, at first, the way Jack would suddenly stop breathing for seconds at a time. She waits for it now, knowing what it means, and knowing better than to stop.

* * *

_ She returned to Grissom more times than she can remember. Returning to the same place repeatedly is dangerous, and Jack told her that she can just come in the front door. She laughed at her, kissed her, and told her not to wait up. She was always gone before Jack got up in the morning._

_ She brought the book the next time she was there. She hid it in the sock drawer while Jack was in class. She found it on the bookshelf the next time she came to visit._

_ The gifts became habit, and she found herself looking for small things she could take back to Jack whenever she was working._

* * *

Jack stops breathing entirely, and Kasumi twists her hand, hooking her fingers. Jack's breath comes back in a gasp. Kasumi pulls her through her orgasm, capturing the scream that comes at its tail end with a kiss. She slows her hand, but doesn't stop, preventing Jack from coming down completely. A hand stops her, pulls her away from the warmth they've sunk into and draws her entire body up to lie on the bed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack forces out. Kasumi grins at the way the words break as she tries to catch her breath. She wiggles away from Jack long enough to get out of her clothes, then tucks herself up against her side again.

"I missed you. Still can't get out of the system. You can only steal the same painting so many times from different people before it gets boring." It's hard to admit that, to missing her. She still refuses to admit what they are. She doesn't need to. She's here now, and as far as she's concerned that's all that matters.

* * *

_ It nearly killed her when she heard about Cerberus. She left the crucible project long enough to make it to the Citadel just to confirm that Jack was okay. She didn't speak to her there. Didn't approach her. It was enough to know that she was okay._

* * *

"You should try blowing shit up. Works for me."

"As subtle as a Reaper," she answers, stealing yet another kiss.

"But more fun," Jack whispers, using a leg to leverage Kasumi onto her back. She lets herself be rolled, enjoying the feel of Jack's weight on top of her.

"We'll have to see about that."

* * *

_ They went to dinner after the war. It was in an Alliance mess tent. They don't talk. They leave separately. Kasumi spent the next three days tracking Jack to find out where she was staying._

* * *

Kasumi won't admit it's love. She won't admit that it is anything other than sex. She doesn't need to. She won't be there in the morning. Or maybe she will be. She doesn't know. She won't know until the sun creeps over the window sill and she makes that decision. She wonders if Jack wants more. She thinks she might be willing to give it, but she won't admit to that out loud either.

It doesn't really matter.

All that really matters is that no matter where they are, whether she's there in the morning or not, whether Jack feels anything more than an emotionless sexual attraction or not, whatever they decide to call themselves; they are content.


End file.
